MSF patient support officer Tidiane -- at the MSF mobile clinic in the neighbourhood of Tombolia, Conakry, Guinea on March 18, 2016. MSF launched a HIV testing campaign in Conakry with the support of health authorities moving throughout several neighbourhoods throughout 2016.

The reason that we decided to organise a mass awareness and screening campaign for HIV AIDS was to allow the population to have access to information and also treatment. The level of understanding of HIV AIDS in Guinea is generally very very low. We are in a country where the perceptions of HIV AIDS are negative, the population is scared of contracting the illness because they believe to have HIV AIDS signifies death. In general Guinea does not have easy access to HIV AIDS screening and testing. Since the last few years screenings are rare and where you can be tested you need to pay. We decided to undertake the mass campaign now because in the fight against ebola we trained an important number of community health promoters so with the end of the ebola epidemic we wanted to use the human resource for informing the population on HIV SIDA. Our strategy for encouraging people to be tested is by working alongside people in the community living with HIV AIDS and activists. These activists give their testimonies to the population so they will understand it’s possible to live with HIV and be healthy."

"Despite countries in West and Central Africa having a relatively low HIV prevalence (